Korea twice in one year - November 2022 - Page 9

I got off the train at Jamsil, where I have been a couple of times before, to be greeted by the clearest day I have ever seen in Seoul.

Here is the Lotte tower. I walked around the lake to take the photo even though my plan was taking me in the other direction.

The peace gate or some such thing. I talks about reunification with the North, how's that going?

Flag's of every country in the Olympics.

It is a very large park, I do not know if it was a park like this in 1988, or if there was housing for the athletes here, but it is quite hilly.

There are a lot of cats.

View from a hill. I think that area is an archaeological excavation site. Someone found an ancient running shoe. Look at all the cranes in the background at a new housing development.

View of clear skies into the sun.

There are also a lot of little lakes dotted around the Olympic park, presumably where they held the outdoor diving.

A family of stone elephants frolicking in the sun with the Lotte tower in the background.

There are still 3 large stadiums in the park, I do not know if they demolished any others after the Olympics.

I have no idea why there is a giant thumb. Also, a flying bird.

The subway station for the Olympic park is quite elaborate.

Some time later on my walk above the purple line, I came to a community garden. This part of Seoul is all new apartment buildings, some a lot newer than these ones. How do they decide who gets to pick and keep the cabbages in the community garden?

Occasionally, rather than waiting for the traffic lights, it is quicker to descend under the intersection, and marvel at the long tunnel you have completely to yourself.

There were a few different streams to cross, I limited myself to one stream photo.

After a longer than expected walk, I arrived at the rowing stadium.

It is 3km long, I walked past the distance markers so I can say that with a high degree of confidence.

I climbed that mountain early on during this trip, it is the one with the observatory on top.

I also already climbed that mountain on this trip. I climb a lot of mountains. You can see the Starfield Hannam shopping centre here.

The inside of Starfield Hannam is very much like Westfield Chadstone in Melbourne.

However, this being Korea, they have a lot more video screens and super bright lighting.

Last pic, what does this store sell I wonder? Sunglasses. They had all kinds of weird looking areas like this, including a giant animatronic moth and a horse, and maybe 10 pairs of sunglasses on display in total.

Another container park. These things are everywhere.

I got off at the Ewha Womans University station (I did not walk here this evening). There was a bit around, but I was expecting more. Time to study the map.

Found the place, I really wanted to get off at Sinchon station. The street layout is a bit confusing around here, I found myself re arriving at this point unexpectedly multiple times.

The other direction from the same spot. There are some pedestrian streets and some bus only streets, and a Hyundai department store.

Even though it was Sunday, the quiet day, many places had lines of people.

Eventually I found a food courty type of place, and had whirlwind omurice. Presentation great, flavour was lacking.

For my last pic today, what I should of had, ramen pizza.

Over the other side of that bridge (which is across an 8 lane road you can't see here) is a mountain I have climbed up before, with the wall on it. You can even go up there at night and it was where I thought I might go today for a short rainy hike, but it is closed on Monday's. You have to go through a security check point to go up there as it has a view of the 'blue house'. So.... maybe today was not the last hike and tomorrow will be another small hike?

The first part of my small outing went up a road, I started looking for more interesting ways, as there are many paths up to the top of Ansan.

That's better. And the sun came out.

First view of similar views of Seoul tower. Clear, great clouds.

I was glad my rocky path was not wet at this point.

A view along another valley between mountains.

I believe that is Gangnam.

It was not far to the top. Probably only 45 minutes from the station to the top.

Second view of similar view of Seoul tower. Clouds were better in first view.

Second view of valley between mountains.

Third view of similar view of Seoul tower. This is the last one, from the top.

The top was a smoke signal station, the 2nd to last one. The last one was on top of the hill with the Seoul tower on it. Apparently, these were kept functional until 1997.

Sun came out again on my way down.

Dark clouds created threatening twilight.

It rained again briefly after I came back down, big heavy drops, like a tropical shower. Also it was very warm, On Wednesday it is supposed to be a low of -11c and a high of -4c. That seems unlikely.

I started walking up a hill again. Those are definitely rain clouds.

I had walked all the way back to Seoul tower, proving that you do not need smoke signals. It is actually not that far, maybe 45 minutes of walking.

Final pic for today, a very familiar view down the main road from the lower cable car station of Seoul tower. It is supposed to rain all evening, so I might have to find a big shopping centre to pace around while moist.

I came up for air briefly, still raining.

I saw eggslut on my last trip to Korea in a different location. They are expanding rapidly.

The healthiest dinner of this trip. There isn't even any rice! Expensive though, I think it was over $10. Most of Korea had the same idea as me, it is raining, head to somewhere underground. I decided the best tactic was to eat right on 6pm as many places already had big lines. It was either here, eggslut or burger king.

I am still amused that this giant underground mall has a running track through it, people do run on it to be funny and take photos, and they do run into other people doing it.

Final pic is inside the giant bookshop. Last time they had a flower garden, this time, xmas obviously. Presumably they had a Halloween theme that was removed pretty quickly after the Itaewon tragedy.

Korea lost their world cup game against Ghana. Around midnight local time my phone started going crazy with messages from the emergency broadcast system which is a sim card level service the government abuses here. I presume all the messages were about not starting a riot. Thanks for that.

To do the very short, very developed hike up Inwangsan, follow the road past the palaces around until you get to these tunnels, then just turn right to go up the hill.

The wall starts almost immediately. You do not always walk along the wall itself.

Low down view. We will do similar to yesterday, same view multiple times.

Given that the ground was still damp, I was happy to have some good sturdy non slippery steps for most of, but not all of the journey.

Flatter sections have the nice hessian rug.

More of the view, this time with the wall, and some wires. Lots of wires up here due to the military posts, which did not have soldiers standing guard at them like they did last time. I do not think they check passports at all anymore here. I was not carrying mine but I think the checks were racially profiled anyway. There was an assassination attempt on the South Korean president by North Korean spies from here in the 60's.

Higher up view, more wall.

Across there is the small hike from yesterday, which had nicer photos because of the sky.

The highest point of today's journey is up there. It gets steep towards the end.

Tree framed view towards the.. um.. east I think.

It is not all staircases, but the rocks were not slippery despite being damp.

The mountain range over the back is of course, Bukhansan national park.

View from the top. Slightly crooked I think.

Last time I came up a different way, joined the wall near the top, then went back down the way I came up today... Today I came up the way I came up today (yes really), and continued on over the top and down a different way. That leads to this very nice looking 'forest rest zone' which appears to have a library inside it.

The way down was similar to the way up, but with less view.

Some time after, on my walk back towards the city, I found myself in the musical instruments wholesale market. These days it looks like more of a retail market, but there are still hundreds of shops selling mainly Cort and other Korean brands. Although their are certainly shops with very expensive brands like PRS, Suhr too.

My ass. Actually this is a seat in the cafe zone of the musical instruments market.

There are multiple levels, they are kind of themed but there are generally guitar shops on all levels anyway, including squeezebox level.

And, sometime later again, I found myself in the Bank of Korea money museum, where they attempt to explain how important cash money is. I have not used cash money even once on my entire trip. However, here is how it gets recycled into buildings.

It is a very nice building, soon it will be amusing to kids who have never seen cash in their lives. That is all the pics for now, not sure where to go to tonight, but the sun is now shining.

When I got off at Apgujeong, I was surprised to find another Hyundai department store. Just how many of these things are there? Their xmas decorations budget must be immense.

The diagonal street through Apgujeong with all the flagship outlets of well known stores was nice enough. Pretty quiet.

Somewhere near Sinnonhyeon. Yeah, I know where all the stations are these days.

Lots of lights but not many people.

Street view near the main corner in Gangnam. One street back is where all the coloured lights and bars are.

And.. dinner in a cardboard box. Pretty nice actually, but I was under the impression disposable plates and cutlery are illegal when you dine in. They certainly are in cafe's. I was not the only one eating in eating out (read that twice) of a cardboard box so I do not think it was a lost in translation error. Maybe I will report them to the department of non disposable eating utensils enforcement council!